121 lines
4.9 KiB
HTML
121 lines
4.9 KiB
HTML
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1" ?>
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<html>
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<head>
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<title>EUCD and the first LiLiT meeting</title>
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</head>
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<body>
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<center>
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<h1>EUCD and the first LiLiT meeting</h1>
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</center>
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<p>
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Friday 26 April, <a href="http://www.lilit.be/">LiLiT</a> (<a href="http://dyn.teuwen.org/gallery/lilit">pictures</a>),
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organised its first conference. Belgium is a small country
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with a remarkably high number of GNU/Linux user groups.
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Unlike many others LiLiT is not only focused on the technical
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side of GNU/Linux: philosophy and political activism is on
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their agenda. The conference reflected this orientation with a
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talk about legal activism and another on the philosophy of
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Free Software.
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</p>
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<p>
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Alexandre Dulaunoy, activist of the <a
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href="http://www.ael.be/">AEL</a> explained the evolution of
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the legal system and its impact on software freedom. The AEL
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is a democratic non-profit organisation and Alexandre
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self-chosen activity is to understand copyright, software
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patents, WIPO. The most remarkable part of his speech was on
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EUCD (which is an implementation of Article 11 of <a
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href="http://clea.wipo.int/lpbin/lpext.dll/clea/LipEN/46e4b/48c86?f=file[document.htm]#JD_754ab">WIPO
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Copyright Treaty</a> that produced the <a
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href="http://www.loc.gov/copyright/legislation/dmca.pdf">DMCA</a>
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with similar <a
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href="http://www.sims.berkeley.edu/~pam/papers/Samuelson_IP_dig_eco_htm.htm">undesirable
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effects</a>).
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</p>
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<p>
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The <a href="http://www.fsfeurope.org/law/eucd/">EUCD</a> will
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become a law in each European country if noone acts against it
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before December 2002 (see <a
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href="http://europa.eu.int/smartapi/cgi/sga_doc?smartapi!celexapi!prod!CELEXnumdoc&lg=en&numdoc=32001L0029&model=guichett">Directive
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2001/29/EC, article 13</a>). It will happen in Belgium (it's a
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law project for the moment, see <a href="http://www.ael.be/action/2002/eucd/projet-de-loi-belge/wetsontwerp-BIL.pdf">Avant Projet de Loi, Article 13</a>) <!-- and it <a href="http://www.andreamonti.net/it/lex/s1496.htm">already happened in Italy</a> -->.
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Why would you want to stop EUCD in your country ? Because it
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turns the act of writing, distributing and even discussing the
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most trivial program into a criminal offense. Do you have the
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freedom of writing from scratch a program that displays the
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content of a DVD ? In France you can: everyone has the
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freedom to write any kind of program with her own hands. In
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Belgium EUCD, the modified law will make this illegal.
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</p>
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<p>
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EUCD is a plague worse than software patents. It forbids
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anyone to write programs that "may circumvent a protection
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mechanism". DVD are encrypted supposedly to protect from
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copies. EUCD therefore forbids you to write a program to read
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your DVD on your DVD reader. This reasoning can be extended ad
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nauseum: an online game server was recently sued because its
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communication protocol was compatible with the game server of
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the plaintive. How is it related to protection mechanism ?
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The plaintive claims that the competitor does not implement
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the same proprietary license checks than his: any client can
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connect to the server (<a
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href="http://www.eff.org/IP/Emulation/Blizzard_v_bnetd/20020408_eff_bnetd_pr.html">more
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information</a>).
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</p>
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<p>
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If we don't spend some days of our time as soon as possible to
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fight EUCD, we are facing decades of horror. To my knowledge
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only a few people in Europe are actually doing something: <a
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href="mailto:alexandre.dulaunoy@ael.be">Alexandre Dulaunoy</a> in
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Belgium/Luxemburg, <a href="mailto:joao@silvaneves.org">Jo<EFBFBD>o
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Neves</a> in Portugal and <a
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href="http://uk.eurorights.org/">Campaign for Digital
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Rights</a>. Jo<4A>o wrote a good analysis of EUCD, Alexandre
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published sample letters to send to political persons and
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Campaign for Digital Rights organises mini conferences. They
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are all talking to officials in their countries to explain
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them the dangers of EUCD.
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</p>
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<p>
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You can do something similar. It may very well be the case
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that you already did something. If so talk to Alexandre, Jo<4A>o
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and Campaign for Digital Rights, make yourself know and use
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FSF Europe as a medium to create a force that will stop EUCD
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while it's possible. We have to unite at the European level.
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</p>
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<p>
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I kept this report short and focused on EUCD on purpose.
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Alexandre made me realise the urgency in this matter during
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the LiLiT conference. I was stuned and ashamed to have
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overlooked this subject in the past months. Texts were too
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long to read, legal explanations were too hard to figure
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out.
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</p>
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<p>
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I decided to rely on Jo<4A>o, Alexandre and Campaign for Digital
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Rights and follow their lead. Are you joining us ?
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</p>
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<i><a href="mailto:loic@fsfeurope.org">Lo<EFBFBD>c Dachary</a></i>
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<p></p>
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</body>
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<timestamp>$Date$ $Author$</timestamp>
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</html>
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